What Have You Done for Your Brain Lately

By Susan Dunn, MA, Emotional Intelligence Coach & Consultant

"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching
for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make
its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous
system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't
need its brain any more so it eats it! It's rather like
getting tenure." ~David Dennett, "Consciousness
Explained"

Anthony is a tenured professor, head of the department, who
tells me he's "going out of his mind." He's deeply
dissatisfied with his life, and wants to change careers.

He's desperate for new experiences, for meaning and purpose,
and for something new in his life. He is "hamstrung" by a
high salary and a less-than-30-hour week with long
vacations, but is beginning to see the "price" is not worth
it.

Though Anthony happens to actually be a tenured professor,
he is representative of many clients I have who are 50 or
older.

As more Baby Boomers "come of age," the studies about aging
continue to pump in lots of new information to counteract
former stereotypes. Science is discovering that "old" rats
given new toys and new playmates start growing new brain
cells, and better brain cells. Imagine!

And, right on-point, these are the two things Anthony
laments the most about his current position - the fact that
he isn't encouraged, or allowed, to innovate within the
department; and that there's no camaraderie.

Let's take a look at some myths about aging and the brain,
to encourage you to keep learning, and to keep acquiring new
toys, and new playmates. And, oh yes, get toys that give
you a good workout, both physically and mentally. That's
one of the keys to resilience as you age!

MYTH No. 1: Once you're born, all you can look forward to
is a long and steady loss of brain cells (aka neurons).

REALITY: "Stem" cells in the human brain can create new
neurons indefinitely, and relatively idle neurons will
extend their branches to carry signals to and from other
neurons indefinitely, under the proper circumstances.

MYTH No. 2: We can't get smarter as we age.

REALITY: Mice (are we like mice . you be the judge) in an
enriched environment, with interesting toys and playmates,
showed an increase in 4000 new neurons in the hippocampus
(crucial to memory and learning) compared to 2400 in the
control group with no toys or playmates. And older mice's
brains also got bigger and better! And quickly! (Diamond
and Rosenzweig, Elizabeth Gould, Princeton)

MYTH No. 3: Creativity diminishes with age.

REALITY: According to Ralph Warner, author of "Get a Life:
You Don't Need a million to Retire Well," "older artists
often do well, commonly experiencing a sustained burst of
exciting creativity after 65."

MYTH No. 4: There isn't much you can do to avoid
Alzheimer's.

REALITY: According to David Snowden, Ph.D., "Aging with
Grace," hardworking brains (the ones that get used in
learning new things all during life) do well because their
stimulated cells branch frequently, resulting in millions of
new connections (synapses) so the brain actually becomes
larger and.evidence continues to accumulate that a larger
brain can cope with the effects of brain diseases, like
Alzheimer's and strokes. Theoretically because a larger
brain has more active tissue, and therefore a greater number
of ways to work around diseased or damaged areas.

MYTH No. 5: What you've got, is all you'll ever get.

REALITY: According to Paul Tallal, Rutgers University
neuroscientist, "You create your brain from the input you
get." By this, she means intellectual stimulation strengths
the brain because in the normal course of living, our brains
constantly reorganize themselves, which is called
"neuroplasticity." And neuroplasticity speeds up with the
amount and complexity of the new information our brains
receive.

MYTH No. 6: As you age, it's too hard to learn new things,
so stick with what you already know.

REALITY: According to Arnold Scheibel, head of UCLA's Brain
Research Institute, the brain's axons and dendrites (which
send and receive messages) grow fastest with new material.
"The important thing is to be actively involved in areas
unfamiliar to you," say Golden and Tsiaras, in "Building a
Better Brain." "Anything that is intellectually challenging
can probably serve as a kind of stimulus for dendritic
growth, which means it adds to the computational reserves in
your brain." Sounds to me like building new hard drive,
yes?

MYTH No. 7: Watching the Discovery Channel suffices for
stimulation.

REALITY: Dr. Robert Friedland reports that adults over age
70 with brain-stimulating hobbies were two and a half times
less likely to suffer from the effects of Alzheimer's later
in life than were those whose main leisure activity was
watching TV.

MYTH No. 8: In order to stimulate and grow the brain, you
must engage in formal schooling.

REALITY: According to Warner, traditional academic subjects
aren't the only answer. The key is to find something both
new and challenging to you. "Thus a Latin professor,"
writes Warner, "might do better to learn how to prune fruit
trees, line her car's brakes or even solve difficult jigsaw
puzzles than to write a scholarly essay parsing Cicero's
rhetoric."

MYTH No. 9: I can ignore it for a while and it will still
be there when I get back.

REALITY: Not! According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, the
brain uses a lot of energy and blood, something we can't
"afford" to no purpose. If neurons dedicated to perform a
given skill are not being used, they'll either atrophy or be
co-opted to some other function.

Myth No. 10: Intellectual stimulation is enough.

REALITY: According to Marion Diamond, aerobic exercise,
such as swimming and jogging, may be especially beneficial
to brain function in aging people, because it tends to keep
blood vessels in better shape. And according to the Salk
Institute study, mice that exercised regularly on a running
wheel grew twice as many new brain cells (again, in the
hippocampus) as other mice.

So there you have it! Jog on out for those new toys and new
playmates and get a better brain and a better life! And
it's never too late unless you don't start now.